The Last Puritan - History of The Novel

History of The Novel

The novel took Santayana forty-five years to complete and was a best-selling novel in 1936 (second only to Gone with the Wind). It was first published in 1935 by Constable Publishers in London. The 721 page novel was printed in Great Britain by Robert Maclehose and Co. Ltd. It was first published in the US by Charles Scribner's Sons in New York. It was reprinted again in 1937 (this edition included a preface in which Santayana described the writing process and his philosophical intentions), 1940, and 1961. It was most recently published in 1994 as the fourth volume of The Works of George Santayana, a critical edition of the philosopher's writings published by MIT Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT edition is based on the original typescript, making the content true to Santayana's original intentions. This edition also has footnotes to the text that provide the reader with historical information, commentary, and notes on editing decisions. The cover was "inspired by George Santayana's choice of the 1935 Constable edition dust jacket of The Last Puritan.

Santayana separated the book into five parts. He named the different sections of the book according to how each individual period of time matched up with Oliver Alden's life: Ancestry, Boyhood, First Pilgrimage, In The Home Orbit, and Last Pilgrimage.

Santayana was at first hesitant about having the novel published. It contains explicit content (by the standards of the time) such as drug use, sexual deviance, atheism, etc. Considering that he was writing about many of his colleagues, he was afraid that it might be very controversial. But, as he wrote in one letter: "The dangerous sides of the book...seem to have been overlooked or timidly ignored by the critics."

In writing this so-called "memoir in the form of a novel," Santayana was very concerned with its interpretation and reception. "There is no loud or obvious tragedy coming," he writes, "only a secret failure in the midst of success. But is a wonderful noble boy, if only I am able to make the reader see it."